GOP prepares tax attack on 2 Democrats in Ohio

[Algorem]

Ads will spotlight voting records of candidates

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060410/NEWS09/604100393/-1/NEWS

Article published Monday, April 10, 2006

By JIM TANKERSLEY
BLADE POLITICS WRITER


The tax man is coming, and Republicans plan to celebrate by accusing two of Ohio's most prominent Democratic candidates of socking taxpayers from the U.S. House.

State and national GOP leaders will target the fiscal voting records of Democratic lawmakers Sherrod Brown and Ted Strickland with a press-release flurry this week, in advance of the April 17 deadline to file federal income taxes.

Representatives from the Ohio Republican Party and the National Republican Senatorial Committee said they'll attack Mr. Strickland, the Democratic front-runner for governor, and Mr. Brown, the party's presumptive U.S. Senate nominee, over votes for Clinton-era tax increases and against some of President Bush's tax cuts.

The push is Republicans' biggest yet to portray Mr. Strickland and Mr. Brown as too liberal for the state. It's part of a broader effort, from both parties, to define the key players in Ohio's 2006 elections before they can define themselves with voters...


PERSPECTIVE: Parties see different messages in poll on corruption

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/114464645278580.xml&storylist=cleveland

4/10/2006, 1:00 a.m. ET
By JOHN McCARTHY
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The state Democratic and Republican parties are looking carefully at the results of a new poll that found corruption-weary Ohioans appear ready to put new faces in office.

And the parties are taking decidedly different lessons from it as they gear up to go at each other after the May 2 primary.

The University of Akron poll released last week found that 89 percent of Ohio adults surveyed believe corruption is a problem in government and that 59 percent think Democrats should be in control after more than a decade of Republican rule in Columbus.

Democrats say the poll results are evidence that Ohio voters are fed up with a decade-plus of Republican governance. The GOP interprets the survey as a call for a change in leadership, not necessarily a change in party control...





Article published Sunday, April 9, 2006

COINGATE
Ohio probes Noe's gifts to charities
Ex-coin dealer gave generously

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060409/NEWS24/604090351/-1/NEWS

By MIKE WILKINSON and JAMES DREW
BLADE STAFF WRITERS




...


His donations to Republican politicians and party coffers rose after the state sent him money to invest in the coin funds. Mr. Noe and his wife, Bernadette, have made nearly $190,000 in GOP contributions since the coin funds received state money, dwarfing the amount of cash he donated in the years before the bureau's investment.

In the early 1990s, then-Gov. George Voinovich appointed Mr. Noe to the board of trustees of BGSU, which he attended briefly before dropping out of college to be a full-time coin dealer. He later was appointed to the Ohio Board of Regents by Mr. Voinovich and reappointed by Gov. Bob Taft. He resigned that post as the coin-fund scandal unfolded.

On April 6, 2001, hundreds showed up at the Valentine Theatre for a black-tie event that raised money for St. John's Jesuit High School. Mr. Noe attended and bought a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He also arrived with Mr. Voinovich, the former governor who became a U.S. senator in 1999, and his wife, Janet.

It was the same day Mr. Noe and his wife donated $4,000 to the senator's campaign...

[MissMillie]

1. Let them attack

I'd put Clinton's surplus and job growth up against these deficits any day.

[DBoon]

2. Worrying about taxes

assumes you have a well paying job to begin with.

I'd rather worry about taxes than unemployment any day

[gratuitous]

3. Bring it on, says I

And the short answer is, "Yeah, I voted for peace and prosperity in the 90s. Too bad it was totally undone by the Republicans in the next decade, when they got their greedy mitts on the levers of power."

The Ohio GOP is really grasping if their plan is to run on the Bush era of deficit spending.

[cmd]

4. Hope we have someone ready to answer immediately

We lose when we allow others to define us. Sherrod and Ted have to answer the attack immediately.

[acmejack]

5. Simple answer; Are you better off today than you were six years ago?

No brainer for most everybody. Especially if they fueled up their car recently. Or bought groceries lately. Maybe they paid their Gas and Electric bill. Tried to get their College aged child a Pell grant. Help their parents with Prescription drug coverage under Medicare Part D. Attended a Military funeral recently. Seen a neighbor off to Iraq.

Are YOU better off today than you were six years ago. That $300 you got back wasn't shit was it? Didn't think so...

[xchrom]

6. versus republican borrow and spend?

debt.

defits.

republican lower wages in real income.

fewer jobs in ohio period -- and who was in charge in ohio and washington?

[Stevepol]

7. Politics as usual is meaningless in OH now.

The only thing that will determine anything in OH now is the voting machines, particularly the central tabulators.

This is the usual procedure now by the far-right Repubs to provide a smokescreen. Just before the election they come out with a big attack, usually negative based on smearing the Dem. Then, when the voting machines roll out the predictable victory for the Repubs, they can explain how the polls were wrong. "It must have been those last-second ads targeting ____________________ (fill in the blank).

[rocktivity]

8. I'd rethink that strategy REAL hard.

As Laura Flanders put it so beautifully, the current U.S. government is made of people who want to destroy U.S. government. But between Katrina and Iraq, I think people aren't as adverse to paying taxes and having a surplus as the rethugs might think!

:headbang:
rockation